NRB Chronicles 2024: Rabbi Schneider: Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, every NRB is like, God's pinched me like, man, how cool did I get this job? And so sitting in front of me now is Rabbi Schneider. And what an opportunity I have as much as I'd love Hebrew and as much as I love to study those things. So, Rabbi Schneider, share with us a little bit about what you're doing at the NRB.

Well, we're here because we do a lot of broadcasting on television and radio, and we're here to connect with some of the people that we're already in association with through television and radio and to meet new people. And we're doing a lot with Pray.com right now through a podcast that we launched called Stories of the Messiah. And then my publisher, Charisma, recently released a book called To Know Him By Name, Discovering the Hebrew Names and Titles of God. So I'm here talking about the contents of that book because I really believe, Robbie, that so many Christians are hungry for the type of truth that the Lord has given me, the privilege of sharing with His people. And particularly right now, I'm talking about the Hebrew names and titles of God.

There's so much there that many Christian people have not been exposed to. For example, we read in the Bible, the first book in the Bible, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But the Hebrew there, the original text is Elohim. So in the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. So Elohim is the title of creator. It means God, but it's God in the plural. So El is God singular. Elohim, when you put the Im on the end of the word, it becomes plural. Even some of the pagan nations of the time were referring to their God as El.

But the greater is referred to as Elohim. And the question is, why in the plurality? Why is it God in the plural?

And the answer is twofold. Number one, when you add Im onto the end of a Hebrew word, it accents it. It's like, this is not just God, this is the God.

And also what happens is when you add Im onto the end of a Hebrew word, it makes that word plural. So now we have God in the plural, which is revealing to us the deep mystery of the Godhead of the Trinity. The mystery of the fact that in the Godhead, there's the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, that God is in community. He said, continues in Bereshit, in Genesis, let us make man in our image. So Elohim, God plural, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, yet there's a dimension of relationship within the Godhead. So as a rabbi, I'm sure you're way more aware than I am that our Jewish brothers and sisters struggle with the idea of a triune God because of the Ahad idea that He's one God. And so are you given the opportunity to reconcile that with folks, or how do you do with somebody that that's their struggle?

Yes. Well, first of all, I would say that you have to be open because if you're not open, you could have the most convincing arguments in the world and people won't believe. You know, they saw the miracles even in the time of Yeshua, and people just didn't want to believe. They wouldn't believe it. But here's the truth. The truth is that even as we can't understand where God came from, I mean, it's impossible, right, to understand where God came from.

How could that be? I mean, everything comes from something because the human mind can only work by cause and effect. But the reality is God is uncreated.

He's always been. We cannot conceive of how that can be. In the same way, we can't conceive of how God is one, only one God. Yet within Him, there's relationship. He is multidimensional, Father, Son, and Spirit. You know, God is love, right? And love has to have an object.

So the Son has always been in the bosom of the Father. That's absolutely beautiful. So Elohim, now how about Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh? And I'm interested how you… Do you pronounce that? Do you not? Or do you consider that Hashem?

Or how do you do that? Beautiful. You know a little bit, my brother. Good to be spending some time with you. So yes, so the Lord reveals Himself as Elohim. That's really a title, the Creator. And then He reveals Himself to Moses in Exodus, we call in Hebrew Shemot, chapter 3 and 6. And the Lord says to Moshe or Moses, your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, knew Me as El Shaddai, God Almighty. But by My name… And then the Lord gives us His name. By My name, composed of the four Hebrew letters, as you said, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, they did not know Me.

And then the Lord said, This is My memorial name forever. Now the interesting thing, as you probably are well aware of, in Hebrew there's no vowels. There's only consonants. So how do you know how to connect the vowels together?

For example, if you had a B consonant and a T consonant with no vowel between them, how would you know if it was pronounced but, bit, bat, right? Well in Hebrew we only have consonants. And so you learned it by hearing. But what eventually happened was the scribes put accent markings that functioned as vowel sounds over the consonants. And so you knew how the word was pronounced. But what happened was the ancient scribes moved the vowel markings over the wrong Hebrew consonants of God's name so Gentiles wouldn't know how to pronounce God's name. Because they were afraid Gentiles would learn how to pronounce Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh, which we believe is pronounced a breathy Yahweh. They were concerned that if Gentiles learned how to pronounce God's sacred covenant name, they would blasphemy it. So now Jewish people just refer to Him as Adonai, which means Lord, because they feel His name is too sacred to pronounce. But the reality is that 7,000 times the authors of the Hebrew Bible refer to Him as Yahweh.

Yeah, absolutely amazing stuff. And in so many important prayers, it's right there. Which, you know, you've got to respect it to some extent that they're trying to honor that and they use that. But it's a really, really powerful concept when you break it down, the Yahweh, that it really is showing you that He's expressing His love through being the expression itself.

Exactly. You know, it's a self-relation of my brother as you said it was love. I really want to encourage people, it sounds like I'm trying to sell it, but I just think that this book will be an encouragement to so many people. It's called To Know Him By Name.

You can get it on Amazon. To Know Him By Name, the Hebrew names and titles of God. So what happened was Yahweh reveals His covenant name to Moses, and then every time Israel had a need, Yahweh expressed who He wanted to be to them by saying, for example, I'm Yahweh Rofecha, I'm the Lord your healer.

And that's a blessing because we know that Jesus came and healed, but to see it even rooted by the Father in the Hebrew Bible, it helps God's people to trust, God really can be my source of healing and help. And so many other expressions, Yahweh Nissi, Yahweh of Mountedesh, etc. And so, again, the idea of Shem, which is name in Hebrew, right? Right. Speak to that as far as how important identity is, because even when Jesus told us how to baptize, you've got to do it by a name with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Yes, yes, yes. So let me just say quickly, you had referred to this a moment earlier, so many Jewish people, most Jewish people, vast majority, will not actually say Yahweh because they feel it's too sacred to pronounce, which to me is not biblical since everybody from Moses onward in the Hebrew Bible called upon Him by His covenant name. What Jewish people will say instead is Adonai and they'll say HaShem. So you go to Israel, you've probably been there many times, everybody's talking about HaShem, Ha the Shem, as you just said, name, HaShem. We say bless HaShem, bless the name, the name of God.

It's too early to pronounce many Jewish people believe. But Shem, you say, for example, a name. In Scripture, we know that it wasn't just simply a name that parents thought was beautiful, that they read a book to find a name for their baby and they agree.

We like that name, Brittany or whatever that name is. In the Hebrew Scriptures, we find oftentimes that names were connected with destiny. You know what's the most amazing is Yeshua. The angel said to Jesus' parents, you shall call His name Yeshua, which means salvation, for He shall save His people from their sins.

I've had a lot of fun over the years. When you see the word salvation in English and anywhere in the Bible, that means Jesus. In the 16th Psalm or different places where you'll see I'm waiting on your Yeshua, you're waiting on salvation, but you're waiting on Jesus. It's the same kind of thing and it's so amazing and I love that idea of calling by name because so many people throughout, it says they began to call on the name of the Lord. Yeah, that's where prayer began, right? And that is what prayer is?

Yeah. You know, prayer, I love the fact that prayer, a lot of times people when they think about prayer, they almost feel a little overwhelmed, like how do I pray? But most basically, prayer is simply a reaching out to God. Whether it's in your mind, whether it's in your heart, whether it's out loud with your words, all of them are a form of prayer.

It's developing a consciousness of Hashem's presence. I want to encourage our listeners to go to DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. We've got so many resources on these subjects, DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. And I think we're blessed to broadcast on your station.

Yes, you are. DiscoverTheJewishJesus.com. And your book again is?

To Know Him By Name, Discovering the Hebrew Names and Titles of God. Man, I got to get it? Brother, I love you, brother. You're a man that loves the Lord and loves His Word.

I do, I do. What an honor to have you here, Rabbi Schneider. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you very much, my brother. Thank you, my friend. Yes!